Several technologies have been developed to aid people possessing visual and hearing challenges in the consumption of televised, recorded, and “live” audio/visual content, including movies, news programs, and sporting events. For example, closed captioning, such as the on-screen television captioning provided under one of the standards promulgated by the Electronic Industries Alliance (for example, EIA-608 for standard definition content and EIA-708 for high-definition content) is widely available. This captioning provides dialogue and other textual information representing the audio portion of a television program to those with hearing difficulties. For those users with impaired vision, the Descriptive Video Service® (DVS®) exploits gaps in dialogue in the audio portion of a program to introduce a verbal description of important elements of the visual portion of the presentation.
Implementing similar technologies for more publicly-oriented venues, such as movie theaters, have proven more challenging. For example, “open captioning”, in which the captioning is visible on the projection screen to all patrons of the movie, is sometimes available at selected showings of the movie. In another example, the Rear Window® Captioning (RWC) system allows only patrons possessing a reflective surface to view captioning data displayed on a large light-emitting diode (LED) display mounted at the rear of the theater while viewing the movie screen, thus restricting the captioning to those who wish to view it. Other technologies for selectively providing visual or audio assistance to patrons in a public setting are currently being developed and implemented.